Thought Center

Today is Thursday. #TBT to those of us with any connection to a screen. I am sitting on the patio, enjoying my coffee and reading insightful posts being shared on my #PR Twitter feed.

I began thinking about how much PR has changed. When I first started my career I was on the media side and would field calls from publicists asking if their piece had or would run in our magazine. It was annoying and I swore I’d never want their job. Fast forward 20+ years and I absolutely LOVE my PR job. It has changed so much thanks to technology and the internet of course. We truly do get to tell stories. And better still, we get to tell those stories to EVERYONE. We can help our clients reach their target audience directly AND we get to work with media to provide them with interesting stories that they can tell.

I am inspired every day by my clients, my team and my colleagues who share their knowledge on social media. I wish everyone an inspired day today.

One way we support our clients is with video interviews during key events. Here, Angela Moore interviews actor, Colin Ford, during HFH GLA‘s Build-A-Thon about his experiences volunteering with Habitat for Humanity.

Depending on your storytelling skills and willingness to be creative, it’s likely that you do not need a press release. In the olden days, the press release was used to distribute company news to the media. Companies paid to have a professional press release written and distributed to news media. Thankfully, the days of “begging” media to write about your company are long gone.

In a digital, hyper-connected world, we now all have the power to tell our company’s story ourselves, directly to our target audience. If you have a website, blog or social media page, you can post your news, in your own words, as often as you like.

It’s a wonderful thing to have that power; you’ll never be misquoted again. And, the best part about digital storytelling is that, when done well, the media will take notice.

I am thrilled to be included as a contributor to this great blog post on Ezanga.com featuring many reasons for us marketing dorks to be excited about the coming year. (Thanks Brittany Berger and HARO!)

Photo courtesy of ezanga.com

It’s important to start anything new with optimism, right? The new year should be no exception. There’s a lot to make the marketing glass look half empty, encrypted keywords and algorithm updates, to name a few. But focusing on the negative is never the way to go.

So instead, we’re going to focus on what we’re excited for in the near future of marketing. Personally, I’m excited about a lot of things, like that people are realizing that just hopping on the social media and content marketing bandwagons won’t bring success. I think this year we’ll see a lot of companies abandon the “throw it and hope it sticks” approach in favor of a thought-out and well-planned strategy.

We are huge fans of digital content and we have been armed with small video cameras at client events for years. Here’s one we just completed for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles to highlight the 2013 National Women Build event held in Long Beach on May 9th. If you like it, please feel free to share it.

For years I have been advising businesses to stop begging media to write about them and instead focus on a digital content strategy. Please understand the media is an important piece of the P.R. puzzle, it’s just not the only one. Today there are fewer opportunities for traditional media coverage and an infinite number of opportunities for you to talk directly to your customers.

In a digital world, that is increasingly more interactive and user driven every day, digital content is the best way to reach your customers. Your website is critical and should be updated constantly, daily if possible. Include a photo gallery, a blog and news section that is in your control (unless you can afford to employ an agency to do this for you.) A combination of videos and photos that tell your story is a powerful way to attract new visitors to your website. Create content that is useful for your customers and can be shared easily.

Four years ago, I made a cold call to Starfish PR looking for a public relations job closer to home and serving clients who do good work. That call has turned into so many relationships, experiences, skills and opportunities that I am beyond thankful for. One of which is the chance to work for Habitat for Humanity of Greater L.A., Starfish PR’s longtime client and an organization whose mission I have always strongly identified with.

Angela is a great teacher and motivator. Over the years, I have learned so much from her and all of our amazing clients. Since it is my last day, I thought it would be fitting to share a few of these lessons here in this post.

Get to know our intern, Crystal, by reading her bio below. She will also be blogging about her life as a “Startern” for us every week!

About Crystal:

Crystal Franco is a tenacious communications student from California State University, Dominguez Hills. Wanting to gain valuable experience in the field of public relations, Crystal applied to numerous public relations company and is thrilled to have landed an internship at Starfish PR.

Crystal is looking forward to learning first-hand what is like to work as a PR specialist. As the first person in her family to go to college, Crystal is motivated to have a successful career in PR or journalism. She is also an animal lover and hopes to one day start her own non-profit organization to help mistreated and abandoned animals.

Modern Motion Represents the 9th Series in the Long-Running Design Collaboration

[City of Industry, CA – August 22, 2012] Bentley Prince Street is proud to introduce Modern Motion, the ninth carpet collection designed in collaboration with Robert A.M. Stern Architects. Modern Motion features a lively large-scale pattern of intertwining spheres with an elegant color line and is available in broadloom, carpet tile and area rugs. Modern Motion coordinates beautifully with bestselling product Modern Block™ and is designed to visually enhance corporate, healthcare, hospitality and educational settings.

“It’s been a privilege to collaborate with Robert Stern and his associates all these years,” says Anthony Minite, president. “They understand the marketplace and are successful in identifying the right products to deliver at the right time.

It is back to school time, which also means that many college students are starting internships. In fact, I was inspired to write this post because we have a potential intern coming in to interview today!

Starfish PR is a small (but mighty) operation, so we get our own coffee and do our own grunt work. While our interns should not expect to be running the company by the end of the week, they should expect to jump in and do some real PR work!

We love for our interns to share their specific interests and internship goals with us. That way we can identify assignments and upcoming events that will get them excited about the field of PR. Our goal is to inspire our interns, not crush them!

Another important part of the first week, is having our interns become familiar with our clients. We ask them to visit our clients’ websites, blogs, facebook and twitter accounts and take notes, as well as ask questions.